MPAA Views on Secure Home Networking
Jim C. Williams
Vice President, Television & Video Systems Standards
June 2004
Abstract
The advent of a broadband-enabled world is upon us – a world that provides consumers
with high-speed digital connections when and where they desire both inside the home and
beyond. To facilitate true interoperability of content over these high-speed digital
connections, a content protection and copy management system must be deployed
coincident with interoperable communications links and content formats. This will
ensure that the system is used in accordance with content usage rights and not misused as
a springboard to piracy.
For digital home networking, the content protection and copy management system must
be able to ensure that, if signalled, the commercial content cannot be redistributed to
another customer or to another place. The content protection technology must be able to
create a reasonable approximation for an authorized user consuming content within the
home or similar local environment. This paper will explore emerging technologies such
as local proximity control and personal domain control that are being introduced in
proprietary products, proposed for regulatory approval and specified in Digital Video
Broadcasting (DVB). In addition to enabling secure home networking, these same
technologies can be used to facilitate secure, authorized remote access to commercial
content.
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) and its Member Companies
look forward to continued collaboration with the consumer electronics and information
technology industries to define sensible and effective content protection and copy
management systems to provide adequate protection of commercial content within the
digital home network environment. These new, content protection technologies also
enable new, attractive broadband-based business models.
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